Alarm Sounded on Expiring Affordable-Internet Subsidy

Most of the concern over the impending demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP)—the federal subsidy that’s made broadband cheaper or free for more than 23 million households—has focused on the people about to have a new hole drilled in their monthly budgets. Attendees at a DC conference hosted by an association of smaller telecom firms feel their pain: “Half of our problem in this nation is not accessibility, it's affordability,” said ACA Connects President and CEO Patricia Jo Boyers, at the group’s ACA Connects Summit. But speakers at this event also pointed to a less obvious set of potential victims: internet providers now working to expand connectivity with $42 billion in federal funding, and which have been doing so under the assumption that ACP subsidies will boost their potential customer base. These Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants, provided in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act with the aim of connecting every American to broadband, underwrite providers’ buildout costs. But their operating-cost spreadsheets may need post-ACP revisions.